Looking back on 2025
Oh look, it’s 2026 already.
What I did for:
My birthday
It was my 50th!
I didn’t rent a castle for this one, only booked a nice lunch with a bunch of friends in the Angler’s Rest, a nice restaurant somewhat nearby.
I (and S) kept getting asked what I wanted for my birthday, and my answer “just turn up!” was not acceptable, apparently. So eventually I told everyone that what I really wanted was for everyone to create a poem for me! – Anything was fine, “I’d generally be more of a dirty Limerick than a beautiful Haiku kind of person, but I will be delighted by anything, free verse or sonnet, it’s all good!”.
On the day, we had absolutely gorgeous weather, so we could gather on the large balcony for some pre-lunch drinks (well appreciated by the staff, who could deal with another large group in the meantime and didn’t have to coordinate multiple simultaneous lunches). This was the ideal opportunity for most of the poems to be delivered, and I have to say, I am still absolutely stunned and delighted by them all! Sure, some of them (especially the kids) had some assistance from some LLM or other, but oh my, 12- and 14-year-olds taking the trouble to pick some things to rhyme about and then reading it all out in front of an audience? I’ll take it, anytime.
I only wish I had all the poems; not everyone was happy to hand over their little piece of note paper, alas.
Christmas
Like many of the last ten years, we had friends over. A couple and one of their kids (this time, we’ve had between one and three of them join in past years) celebrated with us. We don’t actually have a guest wing, but luckily friends just down the street were away over the time, and lent us their house!
The condition was that our guests would feed their cats – as cat people themselves, this was not much of a chore. In fact, the son spent some time there each day just to serve as a warm lap for cat to sit on.
Life is hard.
Gifts were duly exchanged, everyone was delighted by some or all of what they got. There were few real surprises this year, but everyone appreciated the individual thought and personal choice and touch that had clearly been involved, so this was a lovely success.
New Year’s
Also like the last years, we rented a holiday cottage on an Irish coast, to spend about a week straddling New Year’s. Obviously the friends who’d come over for Christmas were there with us, and so was another couple from Germany, who have also done this with us for many a year now.
This time, we were down in Kerry. Not in Inch (on the Dingle Peninsula) as we’d been in the past, but near Waterville, just off the Ring of Kerry on the Iveragh Peninsula. Yes, it’s about as far away from everywhere else as one can be on the Island, whatever the song may say about Tipperary.
There’s not much to do there, which we did with great enthusiasm. After all, just hanging out together is the point.
We had one great encounter with Ireland as it Should Be.
At the butcher in Waterville (whose assistant is very dark of skin, with a non-Irish accent but a definite Irish turn of phrase – also nice to see but not the story), we asked whether we’d need to pre-order something for the New Year’s fondue, and then added, “unrelated, the holiday home we’re renting doesn’t have any pint glasses, do you know where we could buy some?” Quite a reasonable, normal thing a tourist might ask. The response? “How many do you need?” (weird, but OK…) “uh… three?” (???) “I have some up at the abbatoir, so if you come back after three.”
So, we came back shortly after three, Micheál handed us the three pint glasses, apologising for their Guinness branding. “Fantastic, thanks! How much do we owe ya?” – “Nothing, it’s grand.” – “That’s amazing, we’ll get them back to you when we leave on Saturday!” – “No, it’s fine, keep them.”
Anyway, and that’s why we now have three extra pint glasses. And a lovely story.